You Can't Take Me
by StormDragon666
Summary: Sakura knew and trusted nothing when she was stolen in the night for the sole purpose of being Akatsuki's favored plaything. The days are dark, the ever-present eyes on her watchful, and her determination to return home and spite her kidnappers neverending. But Akatsuki could have no way of knowing that...until she escapes. Fourshot.
1. How

**EDIT, April 2012: Keep in mind that I wrote that story when I was 13, maaaaybe 14, and I am now 19. Before updating, I think I would go through the story to polish and edit it and...well, probably add a "mature" scene or two. At that age I was waaaay too nervous to touch on sexual scenes so all I could say or imply was that Sakura was a "plaything" of the Akatsuki and not a sex toy. I haven't really come to a consensus on whether or not she was a sex toy because A) even at this age I would be a little awkward writing such a thing and B) I like both Sakura and the Akatsuki and my uptight inner morals would be all out of whack if I made the Akatsuki a bunch of coldhearted, horny "playas" and Sakura a mildly-respected whore. As for a projected date for updating, the truth is, I have no idea. While I do hold YCTM close to my heart because it was my first AkatSaku and it was a really cool and important personal project at a time when I was a depressed and friendless social outcast, and yet I don't look at it much anymore. I can't give an estimate on an update because, while I do still certainly like the story, I just think about other things now. I like YCTM, but I like other things more.**

I got my Microsoft Word back, guys. And the first thing I'm going to do with my new program is make my first three-shot. I'm going to try a whole new concept, something I always wanted to do but never had the guts to do. I'm going to try my luck at writing a MultiSaku. I always liked that kind of fanfiction. Just cause. You judging? Lol sir, this is fanfiction.

I hope this turns out well. I thought of it while listening to the song (title of the story) on the bus ride home from school. I spent all day and half the night thinking about it and now I'm going to type it out. So…**EXTREME OOC-NESS.**

Also. The shinobi world apparently exists in ours, because Sakura has learned to speak some amount of Chinese, German and Dutch. Hee hee.

Pairings: AkatsukixSakura

666

Specific time unknown…late January…

666

It was hell. That's all she could use to describe it. English had no other words, and the three other languages she knew didn't stretch far enough to know such things. _'But hell is suitable enough…'_ She thought, staring down at her book. It was the one thing she'd been able to take with her on the night of her being taken. She'd just been sitting innocently in her bedroom, quietly reading her Italian for Beginners book. The window had burst open, and one of Sakura's very nightmares had come in to take her away.

It was horrifying just remembering the experience. But memories and boredom-spawned riddles were almost all the entertainment she had around here, wherever "here" was. She didn't dare speak, not even to herself, unless pointlessly cursing or being spoken to first. It wasn't that she cared about courtesy—fuck courtesy around these people—it was that anything she said could be heard by all of _them_. Anything she said could be heard by any of her captors, anything could be used against her or her Village. She narrowed her eyes and fiercely focused on the book, trying to silently continue learning how to speak Italian, though her mind wasn't truly on it.

FLASHBACK

_'The basics of Italy's language are simplistic. The often-used word, "ciao" is usually used as a fancy, "Goodbye" by English speakers. However, it can mean either "hello," or "goodbye" for it is a familiar greeting used by people who know each other. The word salve can also mean hello, though it is more often a formal greeting.'_

'This is easy…' _She thought_. 'I wonder if anyone else in the Village knows Italian! I could teach it to Hinata and Tenten, maybe even Lee-san.' _She flipped the page, going past easy nouns and into conjugations of verbs. She wondered why Tsunade had ever been challenged by learning a second language. In a few months, Shizune had already taught Sakura enough German and Mandarin to fake her way past any guards who spoke such language._

_It was said a few months ago, that in Grass Country, a backalley gang of drunks and smokers from a no-name village had acted up and set half their town on fire. Spectators claimed the gang members had used fire-styled jutsu to do so instead of lighters, as most suspected. The mayor of the little town had come to Godaime Hokage, asking for help to put the dangerous cult in their place, and throw them in jail. A small shinobi squad of four average Chuunin had been sent to take them out, but they had come limping back home with snapped bones and burned skin a week later. _

_It was dangerous to send anyone else directly, so Tsunade decided to have a secret nin sneak to the gang, steal their fire-jutsu secret, and use it against them. The "sneaker" would call a reinforcement squad to retrieve the bad men and take them to prison._

_The injured Chuunin had said that the raucous gang hadn't spoken English or Japanese, but something foreign. One claimed it was Italian, another said German, one even said it was Mandarin. Sakura had thought that was all preposterous, as those languages were as different as fire and ice and llamas. _

_Since Shino, Tsunade's first choice, had his own unnamed business in Suna to deal with, Sakura was chosen to go instead. Shizune had her learn German and Mandarin, which were both rather easy, and now, she was learning herself Italian. By morning, she would probably know how to ask basic Italian questions, like what the date was, how much something cost, or how to ask for the time _

_Reading the book was more fun than she imagined, and many times during her reading, Sakura imagined herself on the scene of the_ Godfather_, and had laughed aloud at it. The wind rattled loudly against her apartment window, and it reminded her slightly of a horror movie, but she ignored it for the book. It rattled annoyingly and ominously for a half hour, until she got fed up with the noise. _

_She went into her closet and found the metal staff that she used when training with Tenten. She pressed on one side of the pole until it was just the right size and set it between the walls on each side of her window. The glass would surely be too close to the staff to be able to rattle about and make more noise. But, just her luck when trying to do something quiet, the sound went on, louder than before. Sakura growled and dropped her book on the pillows. She went over to her window, and pushed away her curtains to take the metal staff off—_

_And on the other side of her window, not five feet away, sitting on a tree, was a man she had killed._

_Sasori stared like a demon back at her.  
_

_For many minutes, she stood there, hands clutching her curtains, watching him. He stared back with an expression she'd never seen on his face before. His eyes shone like glass in the sun, and the look had caught her attention for so long she almost forgot to react when he suddenly disappeared. _

_She felt the sudden change in atmosphere. She knew the second after he'd disappeared where he was, which was already too late. Sasori was already standing behind her, breathing hotly into her hair. Sakura wasn't sure why that breathing alone confused her. Supposing he was not a person, and not "alive," he should not have had any warmth on or in him. He should have exhaled cold. His breath should have made frost form in the air. _

_She wasn't in her pajamas, so was still wearing her gloves and boots, though it was late at night. She knew she had a short, iron spike hidden inside her left glove. It wouldn't hurt him, she knew—nothing in the world did—but it would buy time to find a bigger weapon. As with most twisted enemies, she could feel when he smiled even though she could not see him. "…Hello, little flower." The odd name didn't affect the girl. It was a taunt, that was all. He thought she would turn around and sock him in the face with anger. She would have liked to, but knew better than that now. Chiyo was not here to help her. "Did you miss me?" _

_"Not at all." _

_Then, with the swiftest movement she could manage, she whipped around and aimed a kick for his knee. The movement caught him off-guard for the smallest moment, giving her the time to leap out her 2nd-story window. Not caring about the shattered glass that would cost a fortune to fix, she landed soundlessly on the ground and dashed away to the nearest training ground, where she could break the very ground to bits and it wouldn't harm any Villagers. _

_As Sakura ran, she listened for his footsteps behind her. There was no sound, no cloaked puppet-man in pursuit. His terrible, dark presence was enough to reassure her he wasn't far behind. The wire gates to the training grounds came into view. She jumped over them in a single leap and twisted round, expecting to find him or one of his puppets ready to face her. There wasn't anything. It was a cloudy night, and no moon or stars shone to give light, giving him an—unfair—advantage. It was darker than it should have been…and colder._

_Colder! _

_Sakura dashed to the side just in time to avoid a wooden marionette lashing it's spiked hands at the ground where she stood before. Rocks and grass flew upwards and landed all around. The puppet stayed where it was. _'What the hell is he doing this time…?' _She panted and soothed her stirred mind. She'd already been able to comprehend that someone she killed had somehow gotten into her home. Now, it was a matter of killing him again. The least she could do was stall for another squad to get here. Perhaps she could make enough noise to wake the Villagers in the nearest buildings. Some of them would be shinobi, surely, and they would see the dangerous nin she was fighting. They would come and help her—_

_"Help me?" She said aloud, questioning her own thoughts. "I would love to, dear," His voice replied from somewhere. She felt the chakra string connect itself to her wrist. She saw him hiding in the shadows of a few, tall trees. His red hair contrasted strangely with the darkness of their surroundings. Sasori's hand was stretched out, pulling his chakra string, pulling her closer. The strong girl dug her feet into the ground and pulled her fist away, fighting her enemy's pull_. 'What was I just thinking?' _She berated herself_. 'I can't defeat him alone. But I can hold him off at the damn least!'

_Finding truth and strength in that statement, she pulled harder, and began stepping back. "Keep trying, bastard!" She shouted, feeling power surge in her. "You're not getting me!" Perhaps he couldn't hear very well. Perhaps he was simply being a bitch. Whatever the reason was, she knew she heard him laugh. It was a sickening laugh and her stomach clenched up just hearing it._

_"Oh, but I am," He chuckled. Her stomach twisted at his strange tone. "More than you can guess." _

_She saw that strange look cloud his eyes again, the same look she had seen when she'd first pulled away her curtains to see the puppet man outside her window. What was it? It wasn't anger, nor sadness or confusion. She didn't even bother to count happiness, and it certainly wasn't hate or vengeance. Did it matter? _

_She pulled harder as another string found it's way to her other arm. Sasori's pull was stronger. Her feet slipped and her strength slowly betrayed her. He gave one harsh tug, and Sakura fell forward several feet before regaining her balance and resisting again. His eyes shone more and more, that expression still plastered onto his face. There was a final tug from his side, and the next thing Sakura knew, she'd crashed into him. Or, she hoped she had crashed. If that had happened, he would be on the ground at the mercy of her pounding fist. But that wasn't happening. As it were, she found that one of his arms was encircling her back. The other was spread-fingered by her face, and she detected chakra strings on his fingertips. _

_Holding her there, she presumed, so that he could take one of his puppets and stab her from behind in the spine. That would be a painful, though quick death. She waited and listened for one of his attacking monsters, but none came. There was no pain and no crushing agony. Why? She dared to look up at him, expecting to see a hating flame of revenge in his gaze. There was no such gaze. Somewhere in this moment, she recognized the emotion that had been in Sasori's eyes all night. _

'…Lust?'_  
_

_Sakura's mind reeled._

'Fuck, no!' _The first thing she did was struggle. Against his strong-held chakra strings, she beat his cloaked chest and thrashed her body around. All she heard was the sound of her thrashing around in his arms, and his chuckling. That sound drove uncomfortable and ugly chills up her spine until she had to shake her head like a bronco to rid the feeling. "Jackass!" She spat. "Let go!" She wondered why her shouting and struggling hadn't woken anyone in the Village. Konoha was a half-mile to her left, and from what she could see, no lights were on._

_He held tighter, but this only fueled her efforts. The chakra strings felt like they were poking into her skin and while her head was thrown around, she saw that some of them were poking into her skin. In one of Sasori's smooth hands was a needle, halfway buried into her lower back. The strange way the needle glowed blue told her that some kind of drug was passing through it. '_He's putting me to sleep!'_ She realized_. _Sakura could feel her familiar might draining away by the second._

_She thought quickly, and summoned a heap of chakra into her back. She curled her spine up like a stretching cat. The needle seemed to come out of her skin as though her body were pushing out a splinter. Sasori shoved it back in and she shrieked in surprise and distaste as she felt the needle rub up against a vein. She hissed at the ugly feeling and desperately tried to move her arm up. If Sakura could just give a little nudge and be quick about it…perhaps she could get away, and crack the ground open enough to find a place to hide. Then, she'd dig and find some flint in the ground she'd broken up, and with a man made of wood…_

'No harm in checking if he's still fireproof,' _She smiled, and made sure to hide the expression from Sasori_. 'How stupid could we be? He's made of wood! All we had to do was set him on fire! There'd be nothing left for him to put back together once he's just ashes!' _Excited at her plan, she focused all her energy into gathering chakra into her fists. When she suddenly and finally calmed, she could then feel Sasori's hands—freezing-cold as she ever suspected—stroking the back of her neck. Ignoring the chills that fell in spasms down her back, she found her perfected chakra amount. _

_Just as she felt Sasori's hands calm on her body, she swiftly let her fist fly down, in the exact moment he jumped away. Cascades of dirt and jagged rocks reached up into the air. Her enemy nimbly dodged each piece of debris that came his way and stood, perfectly balanced, on a pointed rock, while she found her way between the giant, raised earth. Her eyes struggled to see in the airless and lightless place. She felt for the hard and known surface of flint. _

_How hard could it be to find a piece of rock in the ground, anyway? _

_Sakura's trembling hand went along dirt, an undiscovered dinosaur fossil, even a puddle of underground water. There was no flint to be found. Her emerald eyes widened in panic, more so when she felt her vision clouding. The needle's drug was still taking effect. _

'It shouldn't be…' _She panted, shaking her head to clear it of the fogginess_. 'I pushed out the…whatever it…was…'

_She sat there in the dirt for a moment. While the drug slowly did it's job, something lifted her out of the ground and back into the night. She was set gently on a patch of overturned rock and soil. Her eyes blurred, seeing double, no, triple, of everything. Three of that rock, three of that Konoha building over there, three of that redhead person with the black coat…right in front of her…_

_Sakura's mind barely registered that she should still be fighting. Nor did it register when she fell forward. It also didn't register, when she didn't fall on her face into a rock. It didn't even register when the infamous Akatsuki member picked her up and whisked away. Still, no Villagers awakened. The sound of a miniature earthquake and the screams of an angry, teenage girl didn't seem to be enough to wake up sleepy ninjas. The pink-haired girl was able to see the Village get smaller and smaller, and see a few golden orbs of light flickering on_. 'Now they wake up…' _She managed to think as the far-off voices of people sounded out_. 'I'm about to die, so of course they wake up now.'

_It was one of the last thoughts her mind could bear to work out. Memory gave out, just when Sasori planted a soft, cold kiss on the back of her neck. She made a quick but wild spasm in her unmoving state, the final resistance she could make to his freezing touch on her. _

_"Welcome to your new home, little one…" _

_Black._

FLASHBACK END

The last sentence had plagued her ever since she'd been brought here. She'd woken up to a soft bed in a large and windowless room. For a moment, Sakura had been able to think that she was in the hospital. For a moment, she thought Konoha's shinobi had caught up with her kidnapper. She thought they'd fought Sasori down, killed him—again—and brought her to the hospital.

That period of four seconds had been very peaceful. Everything after had been a nightmare.

She noticed a necklace around her neck. It's charm was a small, black circle with something so very black carved into it, Sakura couldn't make it out. Ignoring whatever symbol might have been engraved into the charm, she felt the red, silky chord that held it. Deidara had walked in just as she studied the charm, to make things worse. She knew the Iwa missing-nin from before.

With Neji and Naruto, not even six months ago, she'd fought him on the outskirts of Fire Country. The particular area where they had found him could be described as the badlands—deserted, dry and rocky places where no one and almost nothing lived. A perfect place to try out a bomb. She had never gotten face to face with him before, but had come close when Naruto threw her up in the air to demolish his giant bird in one punch. His single eye had stared sharply into hers for a moment that seemed to last a day. Once his unblinking and psychotic gaze had been lifted, she'd dropped safely to the ground. He'd been lucky to land on two legs. Then again, Neji had been lucky to make it out of Deidara's hidden attack with his skin still attached. The look of his scorched-skin body and fearful eyes had stunned Sakura as she healed him.

When the blonde had come into her room, without his cloak for whatever reason, her first thought was to come up with a quick plan. He attacked with explosives, she knew. But the room wasn't large enough to set off a bomb, kill her, and have himself live as well. Perhaps he'd stab her to death. God knew what the Akatsuki had on their minds when killing. Especially on someone who'd already killed one of their (undead?) own.

Her mind worked fast. The room had no furniture but the bed she was on, a nightstand on one side, two doors and a mirror. It would be another one of her fist-fights, but, once again, Sakura would be the only one using fists. He came close, until he was standing at the edge of the bed. By then, she'd been smart enough to sit up with tense muscles, ready to zip to the other side of the room if he lashed out. But he never did. Deidara's mouth never moved, but his visible, electric-blue eye shone with the same emotion Sasori's had. Remembering how sick her stomach had turned when his hands were on her, Sakura immediately leapt up to the door.

Deidara had foolishly left it _open_. She was about to escape, into what looked like an average hallway, lit by fluorescent, electric lights. She wasn't even four feet from the door, when his hand had lashed out and grasped her wrist. He pulled her to him, in a similar fashion as Sasori had when he pulled on her with chakra strings. His arm snaked sickly around her hips. The feeling of her twisted stomach was the same as before.

"Where do you think you're goin', yeah?" Deidara gave no chance for her to give a snappy comeback. Instead, he grinned and planted a warm kiss on her forehead. Her eyes went wide in shock, but, knowing from Ino's boy-stories how French kissers would attack, she kept her mouth clamped shut. That was no problem for her blonde captor. Instead of putting his mouth onto hers, as Ino often said happened first, Deidara had—

'_Bull!'_ She slammed the book shut. The desperate curse and sudden noise drove the memory away…for now. She frowned and set her book on her lap, and put her elbows on it as a makeshift table. Sakura briskly grasped the sleeve of her shirt into her palm and used the cloth to rub roughly against the crook of her neck. She ignored the small indentations and flushes on the skin-bite marks. '_God knows how many of their demonic germs I have on me now!'_ She shivered.

Getting dirty didn't usually bother the pink-haired girl much. Sometimes you just fell in mud, or sat on the ground and got a grass stain. It happened. Getting mud and grass stains on you was one thing. It could be washed away. The stains of another person's mouth on you, anywhere…could also be washed away.

But it never felt that way.

Itachi, Deidara, Sasori, Pein, and even Kakuzu had touched her already. Each time, she'd resisted as much of the unfamiliar feelings as possible, and made attempts to sock the bastards in their stomachs. Each time, she'd still ended up in the arms of a person she hated. Most of those times, she'd end up even dozing off with them in the same bed. (Sleeping wouldn't be the most appropriate term, as she never did "sleep with" any of the Akatsuki members, however much she could tell they wanted to.)

Yet there were still a few others she had yet to meet. The religious boy, called Hidan...was one she had already met, but would rather not encounter again. On her first meeting, he had shown her his hellish religion. Hidan explained various rituals, using the word _virgin_ far too many times, and seemed happy to have her look at him. Just yesterday morning—even though Akatsuki kept no clocks or watches in this building, Sakura had trained herself to know the basic time of day—they'd met in what she had dubbed the kitchen. That room did have a sink and dishes, after all, though she was the only one she knew to use them. No one ever seemed to eat there but her.

Sakura had been looking for Deidara, who had thought it would be funny to steal her Italian For Beginners and force her to look for it, and him in a sick mockery of hide and seek. Hidan had happened to be in her current room of search, and in her way. He stood in the doorway between the kitchen and a connected hallway. She'd pushed him out of the way with one hand. When she looked back to see if he was sending a vicious glare, she saw he had his hand on his heart. She must have pushed him on his heart.

Knowing her luck, which Sakura knew all too well to be not very lucky, Hidan must have taken this as a symbol from his Jashin-sama, for something Sakura no longer wanted to think about.

Who else was there? Kisame, for one…and he wasn't actually that bad. Firstly, he seemed to have no sexual interest in her whatsoever. When Sakura was able to escape whoever decided it was his turn to play with her, she would go to the room she dubbed the Living Room, as there were three leather chairs and a long sofa there. Kisame would sometimes be there, and sometimes she would get to talk with him.

The shark-like Akatsuki, she learned, was the most human of them all. Unlike Itachi, he didn't kill innocents for the sheer hell of it, and unlike Deidara, he was mostly predictable and slow to decide things, and unlike Sasori, he didn't like to play dress-up with pretty dolls. Or so she assumed. He knew how to take jokes and tell amusing stories about his fellow members, and was smart enough to hold an intelligent conversation with her. It would be a luxury to get to talk to Kisame, until another more _annoying_ Akatsuki would come in and take her back to their room, as though she should never be unwatched and outside a male's territory, and on top of that, enjoying herself.

Zetsu, she had not met yet, and hoped not to. She'd seen too many scary movies with Naruto and Sai to know to fear cannibals. At least, all the others called him a cannibal. He was a schizophrenic cannibal who had a _plant _of all things growing off of him. Sakura would rather not meet him, whether or not he wanted to see _her. _The Akatsuki who "played" with her probably wouldn't let another man onto their turf. She could only hope that would be the case if their vegetation-friend ever dropped by.

She had also heard of one called Tobi, and was sure she'd glimpsed him once, peeking into Deidara's room, spying on her like some curious little kid. Itachi and Sasori waved him off as though he wasn't worth discussing, Kisame, Hidan and Kakuzu would all laugh at him, but Deidara seemed to flare up in anger whenever she mentioned his name. Deidara never struck her for that, or anything-no one did-all the same she'd rather not risk him getting angry and more uncontrollable.

Now, she was sitting and staring at nothing, fingering the necklace she had worn ever since waking up in this building. She didn't know how long ago that was. The necklace, Sakura learned, kept her chakra depleted, and she was unable to take it off. No matter how much she tried to summon her strength, it would never come to aid her. Never. Not when she was forced up against a cold wall, she couldn't push against the chest of whoever had her trapped there. Ants could not topple rock walls.

And it was this damn necklace's fault! But it had a certain charm to it, she thought secretly. It was the silk chord that held it. The soft feel of it reminded her of a stuffed bear she had slept with as a child. It was the softest little white thing she'd ever felt, and had always kept her nightmares at bay. The bear had been affectionately named Dreamer for his special dreaming-powers. The necklace's chord somehow felt just like Dreamer's fur. No matter how much she knew that this necklace was part of what imprisoned her here...she always felt soothed.

It was a brief but useful way to take her mind off of the mixed emotions her brain couldn't filter. She sighed and pictured Dreamer, still sitting in her room on her bed. She still had the old thing, and she wished that she had him with her right now. Dreamer could always make her feel good.

The door opened. She opened her book and pretended to be busily reading it.

"What?" She snapped.

The door closed. He chuckled at her. "It's late, kunoichi." She narrowed her eyes. '_Ella means she. Lui means he. Esso is the masculine form of—graaagh!'_ "I'm not tired." She growled.

"Neither am I." Itachi replied.

666

No. There will NOT be a lemon next chapter. NO.

I am going to try to make something "lime"-ish next chapter. Hopefully. Well, tell me if this worked…I never wrote anything like this before. Oh, and **This is a three-shot.** The next chapter will be part **TWO of THREE.**

Ta…Storm


	2. Who

Uh…I wasn't exactly sure of the response I'd get after posting the Discontinuation note…but more people want this to stay than I thought. I had thought Akatsuki's Pet was a damn popular thing when it was still there, and someone else who read this would see this and be like, "Aha! I read that before! You're lying, you _did _copy this straight from AP! This is illegal!" I have fearfulness problems, sure, but I really expected someone to say something like that.

Now I feel stupid for posting the note, (**which some of you may not have seen) **because now I feel I should just keep going with this, and in the note I bet I sounded like my mind was made up already and couldn't be changed…It hasn't even been three hours since I posted it and now I feel like undoing that decision. I got a bunch of review-requests to not take it down and even a PM. (You helped make the decision; you know who you are.) But I'm still gonna keep the promise of taking it down **if needed.** And I'll end with saying that this was inspired by the song, _"You Can't Take Me," _from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. I copied nothing, and I want to make sure people know that.

Also, I know this is not exactly the "possessive fluff" that I aimed for. I don't know what it is now. If anyone has a name, please tell me, since I don't want this to be counted as something weird like "half-rape." Well, I have nothing else to say—except that Doom is one fucking awesome movie and you should watch it—so I'm going to write part two. Wish me luck. I'm starting out with ItaSaku. MAJOR OOC-NESS.

**PS: I will NOT be doing reviews for this story, for once. I just need to get to work, like, FAST to keep inspiration going. **

666

Specific time unknown…late January

666

"Screw off," She muttered, turning the page. "I'm trying to do something important." He glanced over at the lamp that gave the girl reading light and snapped his fingers. The lamp burned away, and there was no almost light, but she continued to try to read. He sat down next to her on the bed, and read over her small shoulder. Itachi's Sharingan allowed perfected nightvision, and he needed only give the page a glance before knowing exactly what it was.

He reached around, shut the book and took it out of her hands. "You've finished this a dozen times…" He observed. She didn't turn to him or respond. "Stop reading it."

"I'm trying to do something _useful."_ She replied tartly. "And I like it, too."

"You like reading the same material…" He set the book on a nearby nightstand, next to the lamp. "…over and over again? Doesn't it get boring? I would think that you'd want something else."

"It doesn't get _that _boring, and a little sunshine would be ni—ICE!" She shrieked as she felt his arm wrapping around her neck and pulling her down against him. Sakura felt his usual, comfortable warmth, and she hated him for using it just when she began to feel sleepy. "I've taken you outside almost every day." He tugged at one of her bangs.

"Sitting and watching me walk around in a courtyard doesn't count." The girl mumbled, looking away. "It's surrounded by walls on all sides, the grass is dead and the trees don't have any leaves. That place is like a graveyard…and even more, I feel like a kid with a parent watching me…in a graveyard." She reached up and yanked her strand of hair away from the Uchiha's fingers. He found another to play with. "It's not my fault you need to be watched." He scolded, tapping her forehead. "If I leave the little flower alone, she will run off."

"I could at least have some more time out there. The place looks dead as a corpse, but it _is _fresh air, and I spent less than 5 minutes yesterday."

"I will let you stay outside for a longer time, little one…when I think you are ready."

She put an arm over her eyes to avoid seeing his intimidating face above hers. "When are you going to shut up about that _little _crap? I'm big enough to break the ground you walk on, asshole."

"But not big enough to reach my chin." He retorted. Sakura ignored the remark and dealt with the frustration of it by clenching a fist on her shirt. Without chakra, she had no chance to punching the boy in the face for calling her short. (Even though she was.) And it she attempted it without chakra, the girl knew he'd block it easily and twist it into some perverted speech about how adorable she was.

The fact that Akatsuki had that opinion of her still creeped her out.

Sakura was driven to see old picture-movies in her mind, and she enjoyed every last Itachi-slaying second of it. While her brain was "At work", Itachi ran one hand through her hair, and unhooked his other arm from her neck and laid it nonchalantly on her stomach.

She didn't notice, being busy in her mind. His eyes narrowed with satisfaction and he continued to play with the soft strands of pink. Only when his hand began to move up her shirt did she move. However, she didn't _move, _she lashed and yelled. Once she had felt his rough hand moving northwards on her body, her arms slammed down onto the bed sheets and she struggled to pull herself away from him. "Nuh-uh, no way, ass! I said, stop!" He smiled at the innocence her mind held. What was once a formidable wall of force was now reduced to something that couldn't fight her way out of his lap. One individual find this wonderful, the other, disturbing.

He pulled her back to her righted place immediately and she snapped her head away so as to not look at him. "I hate you!" She spat. "Once I'm out of here, it'll either be you or Sasori who's first to get beaten!"

"You're _not _getting out." He whispered and tightened his grip on her. She grunted at his firm and uncomfortable hold. "No, Sakura, never. You'll be with us—" His head leaned downward, and he was then breathing into the crook of her neck. He knew she was afraid of that. "—Forever."

Sakura cursed the moment—again—when he harshly pressed his lips to hers in the darkness. Like usual, her stomach twisted and tightened with a feeling she still could not place, not after countless kisses and touches by these men.

666

January 12th, 6:15 PM

666

Naruto's head burned with fever and pounded with headaches. His tanned skin was browning in many places and even blowing smoke. Shizune rushed from one bottle of medication to the next, finding more than everything she needed to heal Naruto's wound. Three other medic nins surrounded her, finding medicine and injecting it into the poor boy.

Rock Lee and Tenten sat in wooden chairs on the other side of the room, watching. Naruto was going to live, but it was painful to see him in such a state, burned to a crisp and nearly killed by the flames of careless drunks and retired ninja. Lee put his head in his hands and sighed. "Tenten-san…it was my fault. My level of youth and power wasn't great enough to save Naruto from those terrible Grass men. I have failed!" Tenten ignored his dramatic words and sensed the truth hidden in them.

"It's not your fault, Lee." She patted his back. "No one suspected Naruto would run into a wall of fire like that. You couldn't help it, I couldn't, no one could. He'll be fine so…" She sent a glance to Naruto, who lay down on his stretcher. The blonde boy was staring at them, trying to listen to them.

"…don't worry." She finished.

"It was Sakura-chan's mission." Naruto croaked. Shizune shushed him, but he ignored it. "She had to learn a lot of weird languages just to talk to those guys…but she really just had to beat 'em up really bad. T-That's what we did, right? We didn't learn to talk different…we did her mission for her." He smiled and his clear, blue eyes seemed to glow.

"When I bring her back, she'll be so happy she doesn't have to go on that mission anymore. It's done. She can rest and have fun with us." His mouth curled and he attempted a laugh, but recoiled immediately, putting a bandaged hand on his gut. "I'll take her out for ramen with Hinata-chan and you guys…I'll pay for it."

Tenten stared wide-eyed at Naruto. The boy who was almost always broke _never _wanted to pay for ramen, much less anything. This was yet another sign, the ninth one Tenten had witnessed, that Naruto wanted his Sakura-chan back. "Tenten?" Naruto asked quietly. "Yes?"

"When I'm well enough to find my Sakura-chan…will you come with me? She'll be real happy to see you." The brunette girl smiled. '_Tenth.'_

"'Course I will. Lee and Hinata, too."

Shizune smiled, too, and stuck another needle in Naruto's arm. He grunted, sighed, opened and closed his eyes over and over again, and fell into a deep drug-induced sleep.

"Naruto-kun is good at this kind of thing." Lee croaked, pulling his hair. "I am not…I cannot stand it, Tenten-san! First, Sakura-san was taken, and then I could not retrieve the staff you gave her…and now Naruto-kun has been _cooked." _

Tenten sighed, feeling some of her teammate's pain. "She was kidnapped, Lee. It was late; we all failed to bring her back. It's not just you. That was…everyone's fault." She felt the fearful tenseness in Lee's shoulders go away. The brunette girl continued, "And about the staff—I don't know how it ended up by her broken window, but they wouldn't even let _me _take it back. I gave it to her to use as a weapon to use against me when we trained together. Since she was gone, I wanted to have something to remind me of her…but the investigators needed it, okay? Fingerprints and DNA and all that shit." Lee sighed again, rippling his jumpsuit with the raggedness of it.

"I know that you're right…" He whispered, looking over at his sleeping blonde friend.

"But I feel like it is my fault." He said. "I was awake all night that night with Gai-sensei. We were running laps around the east wing of the Village. Sakura was at the training grounds, the west…when she was taken away. I should have been listening more! Trained my ears more! I could have saved her!"

"Sakura doesn't need you to save her _all _the time." Tenten snorted humorously. "She can beat bad guys into the dust herself. I bet right now, she's giving a few of 'em what for!" The thick-browed boy smiled as he imagined his crush, flowing with youthful power and grace as she delivered doomsday to unsuspecting bad nins.

"Yes!" He cheered suddenly, startling the nurses and even Tenten. "I believe it as well! Right now, Sakura is showing her youthful grace and defeating the shinobi of evil!"

A nurse put her hand up to her mouth and giggled. "You're so right, Lee-san. Sakura-san would never let a kidnapper push her around."

Just the word _kidnapper _deflected the cheer in Lee's mind and sent him slumping back in his chair. "I hope Naruto heals very soon. I _need _to go on her rescue mission." Lee leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, trying to rest. Tenten watched him fall into half-sleep, then looked at Naruto, whose browned skin already seemed to be paling and smoothing. Lee pictured the pink-haired girl in his mind. His heart sank and the picture blurred to see the girl being taken away by a faceless villain.

He saw in his mind's eye the two white roses she'd given him the night before her dreadful fate, a birthday gift symbolizing their friendship. She had set the roses with a growth jutsu, so that they would never wither or die.

'_And it happened the day after my birthday, too…' _He thought.

666

Specific time unknown…sometime on January 12th…

666

Haruno Sakura growled.

How many times was he going to try and pull this stunt?

Sakura bit her lip in frustration. She was walking down yet another unfamiliar hallway. There were endless doors, each with one glass, square hole to look through near the top, and an endless way to walk, with no corners. The only light came from under each closed door, and even that was sparse. She could barely see her hand in front of her face, and if she bumped into anyone she wouldn't know until it was too late to zip away.

Deidara knew that.

'_**He's a retard, shannaro!' **_Inner Sakura screeched with flaming fists. **_'He's giving a bad name to blondes everywhere, stealin' books and crap! Not even Ino made us this pissed off!'_ **

Sakura relished the voice of her inner self. Here in this building—that was what she would call it, as she had no idea what it really was—Inner Sakura rarely surfaced, and she wondered why. Usually her special voice was everywhere, saying something every few minutes of every day. A pack of sexed up guys seemed to drive her to be more quiet. To "Outer" Sakura, that really sucked.

Now, Deidara was having his turn with her. He had decided to nab her Italian book yet again, hide it from her, and have her find it, and him. She had figured out by simple reasoning that Akatsuki had worked out some periodic system that decided who was with her and when. Most of the time, the system was erratic and unusual, hard to predict _exactly _when one male's turn was over. She never spent two nights in a row with the same person, and she spent a good deal of her time trying to figure out exactly how the system worked. She hoped one day, or dreamed, since it probably wouldn't ever happen, that she would find a chart with names and times. It would have been damn nice to just _know. _Then again, she had no way to tell the time here. Plan crushed.

If she learned how it worked, it would be one step closer to escape. One step closer to escaping the trap she was in.

Something far off in the hallway growled.

She ignored it. One simple and known fact about animals was that sometimes they would growl. And, knowing that all men are dogs…that led to the fact that men would growl. Not only was it messed up, it could be frightening, especially in this situation, where she was alone in the dark with nothing and no one.

But she knew who was making the sound, and that helped keep some of the fear away. Deidara was playing around, trying to make her panic so that she would run like a scared rabbit. Once she was at top speed and seemed to be confident in outrunning her hunter, he'd leap out from nowhere and pin her down. It had happened before…and never led to the best conclusion. It was best not to run, not to provoke him into tackling her.

There, it growled again. Louder, closer.

She flicked an imaginary lint ball off her shirt and pretended to be interested in imaginary wrinkles. She was wearing the shirt that she'd been abducted in: her usual black gloves, red sleeveless shirt, black shorts and tan coverers. It was a slight comfort to be able to wear what she wanted. Sasori—why won't Satan take that fucker back?—liked her to wear pretty dresses. She could have enjoyed it a little, laughing at how bad or how good she happened to look, if he wasn't there, telling her how beautiful she was.

It was flattering at first, now…more appalling. She'd noticed how much he liked dolls. Not many of his puppets were female-looking. The ones that were, were very pretty and well-dressed. That was one reason, one big reason, to like Deidara better than Sasori. He didn't play dress-up.

She could have gone on thinking about that, had something not dropped in front of her face.

Her Italian For Beginners book dropped right out of the ceiling and in front of her feet, almost hitting her in the face as it fell.

Looking up to see if he was hanging on the ceiling, Sakura quickly bent down to pick it up. The pages weren't ripped and the hard cover wasn't mauled, as she feared it would be every time he stole her book. She skimmed it again, all 241 pages. Nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, sentence structure, practice questions and answers.

Another growl. _Very _loud. _Very _close.

Ignoring the sound was hard. Human instinct said to run, human logic said she shouldn't be worried, Inner Sakura said to stand her ground and dare the guy to come close and leave without a broken bone.

'_I'm chakra-less, stupid! Without it, I can't do shit to them!'_She raged to her inner self, walking back the way she had come.

'**_Is this how much they're controlling you?!' _**The mental girl-self raged, beating Sakura with her rant. **_'You're just gonna sit there and let them screw with you like a prostitute, just because you don't have goddamn chakra?!' _**Sakura walked on with an impassive face. If Deidara was watching her, she didn't want him to know she was thinking of escape-and-rebellion thoughts.

'**_Come on, retard-self! You're better than that! You don't need chakra to pop their fat egos! You just need attitude and some cussing n' yelling! You can see it with your own two eyes! They want to freaking rape you! Are you going to let that happen? HUH?!' _**

'_No, I'm not!' _

'**_Then think less of the _evil, sexy ones _and more about the _get out of here-ness!' **Inner Sakura raved. **_'You're smart, girl! You're way smart and you can think on your feet if you need to. Think of a plan! And fast, 'cause they're looking more 'you-know' than usual, and you're uh, sorta right about the chakra thing.' _**

'_Right!' _Sakura thought. She felt her pride swell, knowing she hadn't betrayed any of her thoughts through her emotions. She'd been in her own mental world and—

She was tackled out of nowhere.

She lay on her back, panting shock. After being stuck in her own mind with Inner Sakura and paying no attention to anything else, Deidara may as well have walked into her face. She might not have even noticed.

"You need to watch where you're going, yeah." He whispered, grinning. "You could walk right into the enemy's arms and never see it."

"Fuck off!" She spat, thrashing her arms. "I had better things to think about than you!"

"Like what? Italian, yeah?_" _He chuckled and paused, then said in a clear voice, "Questo è una bella lingua. Dunque bello, ciò anche lo so." She narrowed her eyes to hide her surprise with fake anger. "This is a beautiful language…" She translated from her knowledge of the book. "So beautiful that…even I know it."

"Lei è intelligente." He purred, leaning down. (Translation: You're smart.) "Ciò trovo attraente." (Translation: I find that attractive.)

"Bruciare nell'inferno!" She hissed. (Translation: Burn in hell!) "Fuck this! Italian _is _a beautiful language. You don't deserve to have someone talk to you with it. English suits crazy people better than anything."

He gave a toothy grin and leaned down further, kissing the side of her face.

"Your mind is warped, jackass." She growled with narrowed eyes, yanking herself as far away from him as she could while pinned. "Worse than Sasori's. God, you need help!"

"Worse than Danna? Hheh…That's not what you really think…yeah, Saku-chan?" She leaned down, until his soft, gold hair was resting on her face, and she was forced to make contact with his sharp, blue eye. "No." She spat back. "Not yeah. That _is _what I think. But I _don't _think there's any therapist good enough to fix you!" She smirked, proud of herself for finally voicing that opinion. Deidara stayed in his position above her for several minutes, staring back blankly. After awhile, his face brightened again and light came back into his eye.

"I see…then why don't you _help_ me, yeah?" Sakura's dignified winning face melted, hearing his true meaning, as he smiled innocently at her. "Hell. No!" The girl yelled. His smile clenched her stomach and she turned away, trying to sit up. Deidara didn't allow it. The girl stayed pinned under him, but refused to look him in the eye any longer. Her furious face went blank and neutral. He stroked her hair fondly. "You change emotions so quickly, yeah." He said with a distant look in his eye. It went wide and seemed to glow. "They fly away and another one comes to take it's place…it's so fast, I can't see it…yeah."

"You're definitely the most warped."

"I agree." Sakura twisted her head around and saw Sasori, upside-down from her view, and looking rather pissed off.

"Deidara, you're done. She'll be with me the rest of the night." Sakura glanced up and saw the blonde glaring viciously at his partner. "Why do you appear when no one wants you, danna?" He growled. He put a hand around Sakura's neck and pulled her close to him. Sakura screwed her eyes shut and desperately tried to ignore the attractive scent he gave off. Sasori's eyes narrowed to slits. "I came at _just_ the right time. Another thirty seconds and we would have had to deal with rape."

"I would _never—"_

"I know." He interrupted. "But it doesn't quite _look_ that way." He walked over to Sakura, bent down, and offered a hand. She shoved it away, muttering to herself and walking past him.

'_Pinocchio-bastard. Why is he there at just the right time?' _

'_**So he can gloat later, stupid!' **_Inner Sakura roared. Sakura sighed and was glad to have her temperamental schizo-self back. It was comforting to have someone cheering for her when it looked like she had nowhere to run, and nothing to fight with. Maybe now she'd feel a bit more confident and be able to—

TICK

She stopped in her tracks.

TOCK

TICK

'_A clock. A fucking clock!' _She snapped her head to the left, looking through the hole in the door. She saw only the bare floor of an empty room, and no furniture. The girl turned around swiftly. The two artists were still glaring at each other, and not paying any attention to her at all. Taking the opportunity to freely look around without alerting either of them, she looked through the glass of the door on her right.

A clock was there, perfectly in sight through the glass. It sat on a dresser next to two scrolls. The clock read 9:34.

_The rest of the night. _

'_With Sasori for the rest of the night. Oh thank you, God!' _Sakura didn't even bother hiding her smile. Sasori, thought not human, seemed to like sleeping.

Whenever Sakura's senses told her it was night, he never wanted to do anything but hold her like his human teddy bear and sleep. There wouldn't be anything she'd have to defend herself from, as there _always _was with Deidara and Itachi. A plan formed quickly in her mind as she watched the hands of the clock tick behind the door's glass.

'_Sleep…he sleeps a lot, and sleeps hard…I could sneak away when he's asleep and find a way out!' _

Inner Sakura slapped her on the back for a plan well thought.

'_And now that I know the time, I'll feel a helluva lot less lost around here.' _Sakura continued walking on with her arms tense as though she was angry. _'I can keep track of the general time in my head, since I know what it is now. I can wait till it's real late and he's way asleep…find a way out and be quiet about it…then I'm free.' _

Just in time to not see Sakura's brilliant and proud smile, she heard Sasori walking up closer. She looked down at her feet as she walked, ignoring Sasori's piercing brown gaze. The staring went on for an uncomfortable amount of time. The fire from his lifeless eyes seemed to pierce holes in her brain and keep her from thinking her escape plan.

"What?" She snapped, not looking at him. "If you want to say, say it."

"You left your book." He said simply. Sakura stopped in her tracks and whipped around, expecting to see Deidara behind them, tossing the book around in his hands and grinning at her. There was nothing behind them but darkness.

PLOP

Something hard and cool was dropped gently onto her head. She sighed in frustration, grabbed the book and shoved away Sasori's hand. He took no heed of the rude gesture, and laughed. "You'd be lost here without me." He reached over to run his fingers down her hair. She yanked away before contact could be made. "I'd know this place's damn _floorplan _if it wasn't for you." Sakura growled.

"Denial, denial."

"Don't talk about yourself."

666

January 12th, 9:44 PM

666

'_**C'mon, he's the spawn of Satan and a succubus, but this isn't always **_**so _bad!' _**Inner Sakura muttered.

"Outer" Sakura only sighed. _'God forbid I couldn't find a hairbrush around here..' _She sat in a slump on Sasori's bed, staring into her favorite patch of the wall, buried in her escape plans and her newly-acquired, mental clock. Sasori sat behind her, closer than need be, coming her hair with his slender fingers. Since Sakura could find no brush in the building to brush her own hair, Sasori took it upon himself to do it for her.

Both Inner and Outer Sakura had mixed feelings on him doing this. On one hand, however little Sakura cared about having pretty hair, having a head of messed up locks wasn't the best feeling. It was good to keep it decently neat. (Or in her case with Sasori, sleek and silky.) One the other hand, she had a vicious grudge against the man who insisted on doing this, and he _could _have used something besides his own fingers.

Somehow the comforting feeling of it—and it was a pride-burn to call this _comforting—_was making her sleepy. She could only keep track of the time for so long. Falling asleep would screw her escape plan for good. Odds were, she'd never see that clock, or _any _clock, again.

She swept her fingers nonchalantly against he familiar surface of her book. The almost undetectable sound of Sakura touching it seemed to be heaven. This silence was killing her. It _breathed _sexual harassment. "Are you done yet?" She snarled.

"No."

She sighed and unconsciously closed her eyes. "Sei impossibile."

"I'm impossible?" He chuckled. "I'm keeping my doll beautiful. Explain to me how that's impossible."

Completely ignoring the question and his previous remark about "his doll," she growled back in frustration, "You speak Italian, too?"

"Of course…" She felt his cold hand leave her hair, which would have been a good feeling, had he not placed it on her face. Sakura desperately tried to ignore the cold thing stroking her cheek from behind. "Even Deidara can. But, he's probably read that book over your shoulder many a time...I've known this language for years."

"Oh, yeah? Well…Sprechen sie deutsch?" (Translation: Do you speak German?)

"Klar." (Translation: Of course.)

"En Nederlands?" (Translation: And Dutch?)

"Bepaald." (Translation: Certainly.)

She scowled. Dutch, she had learned many years ago when she was only ten years old, reading a few books she'd found in the library one average day. Being the bright kid she was, she sat down in her room alone and read them as best she could, so that by her eleventh birthday, Sakura could fluently speak Dutch. Shizune had discovered her gift and helped perfect her Dutch when she was teaching her German and Mandarin some months ago, so now it was absolutely perfect. It had been her secret weapon…only one language left to try!

With a smirk, Sakura turned around to bravely face him, and unleashed her last language shot. Mandarin-Chinese. "Ni jiao shenme mingzi?" (Rough Translation: What's your name?)

His eyes shone with arrogance as he smiled. Sasori leaned over her and kissed the top of her head. In her anticipation of his answer, Sakura spat no curses at all, and grudgingly accepted his gesture. He leaned down to her ear and whispered, "Wo jiao Sasori."

Sakura growled and shoved him away, turning once again to stare at the wall. "Any others?" the puppet-nin laughed. "Zulu, perhaps?"

"Geht zu Hölle, Sasori." (Translation: German for, "Go to hell.)

This only made him laugh again. Sakura felt her Inner self slowly growing annoying of the deep sound. She could feel her mental self slowing growing an angry fire in her eyes and hair. So absorbed was she in her "Grr-I-am-angry" reverie, she didn't notice Sasori had shifted her to his lap until after it had happened.

She dared to look up. That same disturbing emotion from her kidnapping night had clouded his eyes again, and before she could get terribly lost in the depths, she turned away and looked down into her hands. "What the hell to do you want now?"

He rested his chin on her head and pulled her closer…close enough to her the beating of his heart. It was a rather sickening sound. "Nothing…" He said quietly, lacing his fingers into hers. Controlling her temper, and fearing for her safety, Sakura did nothing but render her hands limp into his.

"…but you."

Her heart skipped three beats and she ceased to breathe. Sakura felt Sasori's freezing hand up and down her back, and heard the beginnings of a hypnotic, catlike purr. Inner Sakura shrank with fear and the unfamiliar, terrible feeling in her stomach. **_'Are we screwed?' _**

'_Possibly.' _

Sasori looked down and saw her eyes had widened enormously. She stared down at her trembling fists, and he could nearly feel all the emotions that flooded her body. The puppet-nin stopped his touches, and opted for only holding her and purring, which could be just as good. "It's been nearly two months now…" He muttered. The girl could just barely manage to store that useful fact in her brain, as it was too full of confusion to do anything else.

"Two months…and you still don't know, do you?"

There wasn't a response.

"I can sense your feeling…to you, it should be a tight knot in your stomach, no?" Still nothing. Not even a twitch. A perfect opportunity to keep going. "Sakura…" His hands laced into hers again, matching and molding to perfection. "My Sakura…you are feeling what we feel for you."

A twitch. A powerful, throbbing twitch.

"Now, I speak for Akatsuki, of course." He took to burying his face into her hair. "Itachi _claims _he felt the signs first, when he saw you with Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki and the Copy-nin. He knows a powerful shinobi when he sees one. Even Kakuzu spoke up when Itachi told us about it…Kakuzu thought we should get rid of you. You were in our way of Kyuubi, and could prove a worthy opponent when defending it. Then you and the old woman 'defeated' me. I felt it during our fight. You likely did, too."

He greedily caught the fearful gleam of realization glowing in her emerald eyes. The feeling of his prey experiencing fear urged him on. "I could see as well as any, Sakura. You felt lust for me. Sometime later, you, a Hyuuga boy and the Kyuubi found Deidara in the middle of nowhere, fought him, failed to capture him…" He pressed the girl closer and growled out the ending sentence, "He wouldn't shut up about you when he came back…"

"We all can feel it…" He whispered, in conclusion. "We're waist-deep in lust for _you. _I imagine it isn't the best feeling, to know you are experiencing the same thing."

'_**That's what it was?' **_Inner Sakura shivered and spoke to her Outer self. **_'That's what it was! All this time, that weird feeling in our tummy, whenever one of them came close…we were feeling sexed up by them. Jesus Christ in hell!' _**While Inner Sakura ran about the vast recesses of the Sakura Mind, Outer Sakura was barely able to move. The sickening stomach clench, the feeling she'd never been able to name all this time!

_She _had been feeling _lust _for _them. _

"Christ, no!" She murmured. Sasori watched in his attempt for sympathy as she buried her head in her hands, pulling at her hair and trembling all over. "_That's _what that shit feeling was!" She cried into her hands. Sasori struggled to hear her without pulling her closer and disturbing the girl even more. "So this happening was my fault, anyway? For just looking at Itachi, just fighting you, just looking Deidara in the eye..." she trailed off and went silent.

Sasori gave a silent, knowing smile, took hold, gently, of her shoulders and sat straight up on his lap. She covered her eyes with one hand, and though she made no sound of crying, two tears still spilled out. Instead of licking them away—as he would have much preferred to—he swept a thumb quickly over them and brushed the drops away. Wrapping an arm securely around her neck, he pulled her and forced the girl to rest her head on his chest. She took in a sharp gasp of breath, but made no resistance, to his slight disappointment.

Sakura's body was still, then. Perfect. She wouldn't struggle tonight. Tonight, he would hold her in his arms and she would not resist. The twin lamps that had lit his room quickly went out, leaving them both in comfortable and cool darkness. Sasori settled himself against a pillow and the bedpost, happily prepared to lull his doll into a peaceful sleep. It was a natural gift he found most Akatsuki had, including himself. Sasori could purr.

He knew she couldn't help but secretly enjoy it…when he purred for her.

666

2:40-ish AM (at night), January 12th

666

Sakura's eyes flashed wide open. The room was dark. Sasori's sweet, hypnotic purrs had ceased an hour ago. She smiled and could barely contain her happiness and pride. He'd bought her little "scaredy bunny" act. Thinking she would fall asleep right on his chest! Ha! She had been awake for hours, feigning sleep and keeping herself awake by keeping track of the (general) time. She'd even once tried to shift herself closer to him, to make the man think she was seeking warmth in her sleep.

'_By the time he wakes up, I'll be long gone!' _Her mind raged on in a wild victory party. Sakura looked down and saw that the puppet man's strong arm had loosened in his sleep. It lay peacefully over her stomach. She slowly reached a hand over to it, latched onto the artificial limb and set it on Sasori's stomach. He didn't stir, or wake. _'Next step, getting off the bed and out of the room…' _The feat was done easier than she had thought. His bed didn't squeak or make any kind of noise when she slowly-as-a-snail lifted herself off of it. He didn't stir, either, when she tiptoes softly to the door, opened it without a sound, disappeared behind it, and closed it.

Every instinct, every string and scrap of logic she had with her told her to _run like fuckin' hell. _

But the need to leave her prison was greater. The need to leave her prison demanded stealth and silence, whatever could be managed without chakra.

The thought made her clutch the necklace about her neck. Still, the red chord felt silky like her old stuffed bear, Dreamer. Still, it held the black charm. She felt the symbol engraved into the circular charm, and again she wished she could see what that symbol was. Still, it kept her from forming or saving any chakra. When she got back to Konoha, she'd have to see if it could be taken off—HEL-LO!

A flare of energy sparked in Sakura's left hand. She lifted the hand, but could barely see it through the bleak hallway's darkness. She didn't need to see it, though. Sakura could easily feel the gorgeous, dreamy feeling of energy. There was _chakra _in her hand!

'_It makes sense!' _Jigsaw pieces fell marvelously into place throughout her mind. _'It must be that their chakra is cancelling mine. My chakra was always there…this necklace must have made it so that _their _chakra covered mine…I never could have a chance of recharging it if they were near me.'_

Sakura recalled almost every second she'd been in this horrid place. Almost every second, some Akatsuki had been beside her, escorting, "playing," sleeping, eating, talking…doing something. On the few occasions she was alone—well, who knew, then? The only moment she could remember was leaving Itachi's room in the middle of the night to get a drink of water, and glimpsing the Leader on her way out. She had tried to follow him. He must have cancelled her chakra, too. Just spying on the man would probably be enough for his chakra to sense hers, and cover it.

She had _never _been alone. The necklace was controlled by all Akatsuki. If she was _near _them, her chakra would be smothered. But now that she was _away _from _all _of them…

Energy, strength, the power of a real ninja flowed through her veins with every silent step she took farther from Sasori's bedroom. It took a great amount of willpower not to scream in the joy of having her beloved power in her body once more. She tiptoed onward through the hallway with white winter socks silencing her feet's steps. She smiled at the socks, which were a part of a geisha-like outfit Sasori liked to see her wear. That was one thing to thank Sasori for: a part of his "doll" obsession was helping her escape him.

In a few minutes, after turning several random corners, Sakura found herself in the room she had dubbed the Living Room. The three leather chairs and table marked it. This was where she would always talk to Kisame, when given the chance from the male who gave her permission to go and speak with him. This room was where she felt the most comfort, talking to someone who was truly human…and not a pervert.

The deep, black leather chair that she usually sat in seemed to call to her. She almost reached out a hand to touch it, but withdrew immediately, fearing that she may leave more prints of herself. It was enough that she was leaving her own DNA in the places where she put her feet. If she didn't move fast, Sasori would wake and find her. There would likely be a punishment for running off.

Sakura rubbed the flushed spots on her neck with a gulp. No matter how much she now knew that she'd felt _lust _for Akatsuki, the prospect of neck bites had never seemed that attractive. The disturbing stomach-clenching during the bites was definitely _not _a sign of her body liking it.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

'_Damn, my heart's loud…' _She muttered inwardly. In another instant, she knew it wasn't her heart making that sound. No, her heart was being calm now. **_'Someone's coming!' _**Inner Sakura cried, jumping up and down. Sakura herself couldn't move. She tightened her body, and desperately tried to hold her chakra in place. She wasn't letting the stuff be chased away from her.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

They stopped. In a flash, a massive dark wall appeared before her, and clasped a rough hand over her mouth. Sakura prepared to viciously bite down…

"Stop, stop!" A voice whispered hoarsely. "Goddamn it, Sakura! Be quiet!" She did as told and the hand removed itself from her face. She looked up, far up, considering their gigantic height difference, and smiled up at the man before her.

"Kisame! The hell, Kisame! What are you—" His hand was shoved in her face, and she fell silent. "I know you want to get out of here." He whispered. "Don't gimme a look like that! It doesn't take a damn genius to figure out you don't like being held like a prisoner. Even Tobi knows it. But we can't just let you go, Sakura…"

"So what now? I go back to Sasori? Fuck that! Sasori said I've been here two months, and for the first time in two months, I've been feeling chakra in me! I'll pound _you _into the ground, Kisame—don't even test me!"

"Will you stop making noise!" The shark-man growled. "I'm not like them. I'm not a sick pervert who wants a cute, little girl to screw with. I want to help you get out of here."

666

END LONG PART! First, let me say that, **NO THIS STORY WILL _NOT _BE DELETED. **I can't stand to let it go. I really need to finish this. I've got a climactic ending in my head and I just _have _to get it down onto…document. The next part will be the last! I have a few notes here, incase you were confused about anything.

AN 1: _How do I know Chinese?_ I barely do. More of a Deutsch (German) person, really. We had a "China Week" in school, and my German teacher taught the class how to say basic Chinese phrases. Thankfully, since I want to take Mandarin-Chinese along with German before I graduate from high school, I saved the papers she gave us, so I know how to say "hello" and "what's your name" and "what's the date today?" But, they're missing a lot of punctuation marks. All the words have a bunch of comma-things above them that I couldn't type out because they need a Chinese keyboard to be typed.

AN 2: _What about the other Akatsuki? _I have mentioned Hidan, Kakuzu, Zetsu, and Tobi in various places that I can't remember. Only Deidara, Sasori, and Itachi seem to have any interest in Sakura. Well, the next chapter will clear that up for you, and you'll understand where the other Akatsuki have been or why they haven't come to "play" with Sakura. So…you gotta wait.

Ta…Storm.


	3. Where

My climactic ending is on the rise! And I plan to make it as amazing, surprising and WTF-like as possible!

I can mostly guarantee that this will be longer than the other two parts; the first was 11 pages and the second was 14, almost 15. But I will make it good. I got inspiration on a nice, comfortable high and not very much to disturb or distract me except school. (And unlike so many people on this site, school isn't actually in my way that much. It doesn't keep me off the computer that much...I just don't like it.) …so it's all good. Prepare for the end…

End Of The Little Trilogy

666

2:58 AM (at night) January 13th

666

"H-Help me? You're seriously going to—"

"Yes, yes, okay?" His face turned dark, and it surely wasn't because of the lack of light. "You told me you hated this place and those guys more than anything, and I believe you. They're not the best bastards to be around. It's _these _that keep us from sometimes just cutting each other." Kisame tugged at the wide collar of his Akatsuki cloak.

"Figured," She smirked. "Deidara and Sasori probably would have killed each other if they weren't in your gang...and I _know _Kakuzu's already tried to kill Hidan." She lifted a hand to cover her smile. "And Tobi…he doesn't even care what the rest think about him! God!"

"Yeah, they're bitches almost all the time; can barely tolerate 'em…but I didn't sneak right past Itachi-san's room to chat about Akatsuki." Sakura's reminiscing smile faded. "I'm going to help you get out of her and I meant it."

"But why, though?" Kisame frowned and pulled a disgruntled face. "I just want to know, is that against the law? Just tell me."

"Ugggh!" The shark-man pulled his hands over his face and made an annoyed, growling sound. "Look…sometimes I come in here and talk with you, right? I listen and chat about what bitches my fellows are, and how they're treating you. I'm not sick like that. I don't think you're cute at all. You're just a girl who happens to be strong and happens to be stuck here."

"…And?"

"God, you're the densest, most—uggh. I think what they're doing to you is wrong. I never thought Itachi would defile some little, innocent girl just because he likes her, never mind the others. It just disgusts me! And now that I know you more, I find it more sick. So…I'm getting you out. You'll be free from them."

She stood still, staring up at Kisame. He was now the closest thing she had to a lifesaver. "If you can do that—I can't even say how much that would mean to me. This has been the worst hell of my life—you're damn awesome, man." He turned away and put a hand over his head, hiding his face. Sakura didn't even bother thinking why. She probably did know why, though right now she was too excited at the prospect of freedom to care that Kisame might have been blushing.

"Yeah well, it's this way. Hurry up and come on. And for God's sake, _keep quiet!_" He turned around abruptly and stiffly walked down towards the same hallway she'd just come out of. "Hey, hey, wait!" Kisame didn't stop, only flinched at the volume of her tone, and she walked swiftly to catch up to him. "I'm sure I just came out this way, from Sasori's room."

"This place is pretty fucking confusing, pinky." He whispered without looking at her. "You have to know it well before it starts to feel like a home and not a maze."

'_A home?' _She thought.

It may have been a slip of the tongue, right? Could it be? Sakura had never known the building she'd resided in for the last two months. It could have been a prison, a castle, a dojo, and she would have never known because of the bland, monotone design. Kisame may have let slip a secret that she would treasure in her ninja mind forever.

_This place _could be Akatsuki's home. Their base, their headquarters. They did _sleep _here, right?

"Well, it's always been a maze to me," She scowled, masking her discovery with an annoyed remark. "Everything looks exactly the same. How do you even find your room?"

"You have to count corners and doors, and now which number your room is. I've never been in half of them, though, and some are probably empty." She saw him turn his head to look through the big, glass peephole of a door they've passed. Sakura looked through the same door as she passed it. There was nothing in it. "Don't make a sound, and don't jump. We're being followed." She didn't jump at all, though Inner Sakura did shriek a certain amount. "Who is it?"

"It's Hidan, can't you tell? His chakra is the only one I know that feels like…_that._"

Inner Sakura punched Outer Sakura upside the head for not realizing he was there. Outer Sakura defended herself with whatever she could find on the tip of her tongue at the moment: the necklace. Hidan may not have been detectable to her because of the necklace. She'd never been able to _make _chakra since she'd woken up wearing it, and for that matter, she'd never been able to _sense _the chakra of others. _'I can't wait to get this bitch off me!' _The two Sakuras cried in victorious harmony. _'I can't wait to get my chakra back all the way…I'll beat these hell-rejects to Alaska and back! Those hell-rejects will be _lucky _to be pulp when I'm done wid 'em!' _

And one such hell-reject, Hidan, made himself known at that moment.

A fork in the hallway came into view. Blocking the left path was Hidan, dressed in long, black pants and a dark, sleeveless shirt. Scythe in hand, of course, as always, and his own style of arrogant smirk plastered onto his face. "'Bout time you guys got here. I've been waiting for half a fucking hour!"

"I see you still _sleepwalk, _Hidan." Kisame growled. "You'll have to tell your Jashin-sama to fix that for you. Now, move."

"I don't think so, fishstick." Hidan raised his head with a smirk. "I got a bit of business with the lady."

Sakura, who had been thankfully hidden behind Kisame thanks to his large size and her lack of such, stepped around Kisame to face Hidan. "What do you want?" Kisame made a face to her, that told her to keep her voice down.

The religious Akatsuki reached into his shirt and pulled out his rosary. "Jashin-sama's been tellin' me a lot about you." He said casually. "Ever since you touched my heart….remember that?" His devious smile forced the girl to remember one of the many occasions when Deidara had stolen her Italian book. In her search for the blonde and the book, she'd run into Hidan. He had been standing in her way, so she'd simply pushed the guy out of her path. Sakura had just happened to land her hand on the left part of his chest—the heart—as she shoved him.

"He knows everything in the world, and you're no exception." Hidan prattled. He was now stroking the sharp edge of his talisman. "He told me your hobbies, your favorite foods, your friends and family, your fears—and he even told me about that Sasuke boy you had a crush on before. But the part he wanted me to know was that…I had a part in your destiny…did you know that, girly?"

'_Great, another kid-Neji.' _

"…No, I didn't."

"Well, now you do. I just finished up the task. You know Tobi's always being the most annoying little fag? He's usually up running around like an idiot at this time of night. He always runs around everywhere. Odds are, he'd see you, and the sounds of the conflict that you would no doubt have with him would wake up everyone in the building, even that greedy-ass partner of mine. Then what would happen to your little escape, eh?"

'_**Is he trying to threaten us, shannaro?!' **_

'_Shut up!' _

"Well, guess how I just saved your life, little girl." By now Hidan had shoved Kisame out of the way. Sakura stood head-to-chest (because of always-annoying height differences) with Hidan. His stupid little smirk never left. "I put a little jutsu on Tobi. He'll be out like a dead animal all night, for once in his life. I saved you from being discovered, girl. I knew one of these days you'd try to get out. You're too free-spirited for this dump and these stupid bastards; they just want to keep you like their little pet. I would know."

Somehow, she could feel more than one hidden meaning behind his words.

"You'd both better thank me. _You,_" he pointed to Sakura. "would probably get sexually abused for the rest of your life. And not like it's been up until now. What they're doing with you now… it's nothing. They're just trying to play on the level they think you can cope with. But if they saw you now, oh, damn! You'd be screwed, and I mean that literally. And _you, _fishstick—" Kisame visibly twitched. "For helping her out, I can see a damn long time in Mangekyou for you. And that girly blonde idiot would probably make you eat some of his biggest bombs…Sasori…eh, you'd make it out with at least one leg still attached."

"So—" There was a note of conclusion as he leaned down to Sakura's level. His breath wasn't nearly as foul as she had expected as it floated near her face. "Be glad, for me and for Jashin-sama. Your lives were saved tonight." With that, he planted an unexpected butterfly kiss on Sakura's forehead, and walked past them both.

Neither the girl nor the shark Akatsuki turned to watch him leave. "That was…weird." Sakura finally broke the silence that had covered them for the last few moments. "But he's right." Kisame whispered. When she turned to look at him, his head was leaning downward and his eyes directed at his feet. "I always hear Tobi running around the place like an idiot half the night. He _would _have seen us. The first thing he'd do is go running to Deidara. Then…!"

He didn't even finish. "Should we keep going or…?"

"No, no. It's not as far as you think. We're almost there, in fact."

The excitement of freedom was enough to send energy pulsing throughout her body. And it wasn't exactly adrenaline. The familiarity of chakra was finally becoming _familiar _again. Kisame seemed to not have as much power over the necklace as Itachi, Sasori and Deidara did. She could still feel the oppression of the item around her neck, sure. But it wasn't nearly as powerful as before. Once she was out of this building—the Akatsuki's base, she was now sure it was—the effect would be cancelled for sure, and she would rip it off and stomp it into the dust with her own hands.

"The front door is too obvious, so I'm taking you the other way. The back door's just 50 feet off from here," He announced after several minutes. "Anything else you want to tell me? This'll probably be the last conversation I ever have with you, pinky."

A faint sliver of pale light could be seen at the far end of the hallway.

"Just this one thing…" She put a finger to her chin and scratched thoughtfully. "How's it feel to carry a five-foot sword?"

"…huh?"

"You know, most sword are like, a foot long? As big a person's arm?" She gestured with both arms. "Yours is amazing! I never saw something so big. If I weren't your enemy before, I would have admired you. I mean, I sort of did before, since you're a great fighter but—"

He scoffed and turned away with a embarrassed smile. "A'ight, a'ight, I get it."

Sakura crossed her arms and silently recalled all her amusing and comforting talks with them. Their jokes, racist, sexist, stupid and mean though they were, were all funny, and each one had made her feel a bit better about her true situation. She could truly open up to Kisame. He wasn't exactly one to judge—unless you were fighting against him, that is. The chances were, she'd never be on such easy terms with him again. That was the _single and only _thing she would miss about being here: Kisame.

"We're here."

He'd stopped just before a dead end. A bare, sandstone wall stood solemnly before them. She kept her impatience and curiosity down, and waited for Kisame to speak some sort of password or code. Instead, he kicked at a dark patch of stone. Dust fell away from the wall, revealing an old, wooden door with a metal knob. "You have to open it," He said slowly. "I can't leave fingerprints there."

The Haruno girl gave her friend a long and appreciative look, hoping to convey as much gratitude as she could in a single gaze. Once done, she reached for the knob—twitching slightly at the cold, stinging feeling of it—twisting the thing, and tugged on it.

Silver, godly light spilled over them.

Kisame turned his head from the brightness and closed his eyes, while the other drank it the sight with such an amazed and hungry look she felt she could burst. Outside, just inches beyond the door, stretched a vast plain of rolling hills and tall grass. On the horizon, the tops of trees could be seen, marking a forest at the edge of this place's territory. Clouds covered almost all of the sky, everything but a spared circle around the moon, which shone down and made everything glow silver.

"Stop staring at it and go!" He snapped. She twitched at the sudden sharpness, and took a step outside. The soft feeling of grass under her shoes was so foreign she had to take a moment to study it, make sure it wasn't fast. But, not wanting to look at the scenery when she should be running for her life, Sakura ignored the want to analyze the feeling, and quickly sputtered, "Thank you." Not waiting for a response, and feeling her need to run grow, the medic nin took off.

Sakura could practically hear the quick flap of Kisame's patterned cloak as she zipped away at top speed—aided by growing chakra—and blasted a shaft of wind behind her feet. To her great relief and slight surprise, there was no Akatsuki member waiting in the tall grass to rip her down into his arms and trap her again. There was nothing but hills, grass and moonlight.

One can never truly feel what a wild horse feels when freed, unless one is captured and freed themselves. Escaping could make the experience even more exhilarating. Now, she knew exactly what it was. No word could be powerful enough, but _Freedom _came viciously close.

The feeling of freedom pounded through the girl's body. Adrenaline, energy and every other joyous feeling she knew of burst into ever crevice of every limb she had. All of it was beat into the form of chakra, and it all made her go faster. Strength, more than she'd felt when walking with Kisame, beat like blood in a heart all through her. The power that she'd been denied by Akatsuki and their necklace had finally returned.

'_**The necklace, stupid! The necklace! Take it off, dammit!' **_

Remembering it almost made her trip in her run. She stopped suddenly at the base of a hill and gingerly touched the black charm. More than ever, the chord felt soft to the touch just like Dreamer, and more than ever she missed that old stuffed bear. The Haruno child spend a brief moment sweeping her finger over the circle and staring at it, giving one last try to see the symbol engraved on the circle. _Still _she couldn't make it out.

There was no more time spent looking at the pretty necklace. In the next moment, she'd gave a sharp, harsh and chakra-filled tug and ripped the chord off her neck. With a triumphant but furious growl, Sakura threw the necklace into a patch of bare dirt and stomped it into the dust with her foot.

Pride, Happiness and Freedom all rose in her chest. They died the moment after, replaced by something much more terrible. _Fear. _

As soon as Sakura's foot and touch had left the necklace, it began to sizzle strangely. Then smoke rose from the charm and the chord. Dirt burnt, smoked and melted around it like the necklace itself was made of acid. It's former wearer gazed at the thing with horror and choked in a gasping breath. Could it have been moments away from burning _her?_

Fear made her turn away at that moment and run. The forest was within sight now. Above the hills, she could see giant arms of leaves and branches reaching into the night. They seemed to open to her, welcoming the escaped prisoner to hide in their depths. The thought of being hidden, safe, away from lust-filled eyes, was such a heaven it doubled her speed.

RISSP RIISK

With the same instincts a rabbit would have when chased by a wolf, Sakura dropped deep down into the grass, hidden as best she could be, and stared out. _'Something rustled…' _She thought frantically, gathering her wits. _'Something's here…something's here!' _She stayed perfectly still, and with her newfound chakra, she hid her presence, chakra, scent and all.

For many moments, all was silent. Only the soft wind swaying the grass made a sound. After the agonizing but short time, something stepped out of the shadows, only a few feet away from the spot where Sakura had planned to jump into the trees. It walked out slowly, taking each step at a time as though it had nothing to be late for. The patterned red clouds on a black background was all too familiar. Worse yet, was the giant, green accessory upon the wearer's head, which automatically signaled to Sakura who this was.

Zetsu.

This was the man all the other Akatsuki members had called a schizophrenic cannibal. This was the man Sakura feared meeting nearly as much—no…_more than—_as the Akatsuki's Leader. She'd recalled how her daydreams and absent-minded thoughts had led her to believe rather disturbing things about cannibals and sexual hunger.

All of those past thoughts and daydreams came back to her in one moment, as Zetsu walked right past her hiding place. The white half and black halves of his body where clearly visible in the few moments it took for him to stalk past Sakura's grass hideaway. For a moment, every fearful thought of Zetsu she'd ever had was in her mind. As he passed, Sakura looked down at his hands, expecting to see a ballgag or a whip as nightmares had shown.

And thank God, there wasn't.

The gargantuan plant-like _thing _on his body was even more terrible-looking in close-up, real life. Photos were nothing like the real thing, though they did get the main point across. **_'Maybe he eats people with it.' _**Inner Sakura whispered. That wasn't the most comforting thought right now.

Zetsu walked on, past Sakura's hiding spot. Surely, she had hidden herself well enough not to be spotted, but she knew better than the assume something so easily. Any moment now, he could turn around and give her no time to react while he rushed up and—well, out of all the disgusting and evil things she'd imagined, getting _eaten_ was the most appealing one.

He stopped. The young medic tensed the muscles in her legs and feet to prepare to speed away, and tensed even more in her arms, prepared to punch his brains out if need be. But the plant-like Akatsuki did not turn and see her. Instead, he bent down to the ground. The brushing, rustling sounds suggested that he was looking in the dirt. For a moment, the girl was wondering if he was digging for worms to feed his plant-thing.

Then it hit, as Zetsu stood up. Her stomach clenched, and not with the lust she had been feeling before. It was fear now, almost as terrible as the former emotion.

In his left hand, his white hand, Zetsu held her necklace.

'_No! I left it there! I can't believe myself; I just _left _it there!' _Her mind raced. What would he do? What should _she _do? Run away right now? Buy a few seconds' time by exposing herself fully? Or keep hiding and risk being found anyway? The questions needed to be answered _now. _

Noises came from the Akatsuki's direction. No, voices. People were converse—no, he was conversing with _himself. _She couldn't make out the words, only tones. There were two—perhaps one for each color of his body?—one was monotone, disturbingly like a robot, and the other was, more disturbingly, gentle and sweet, and they appeared to be arguing. The soft voice rose to a furious, hissing growl and the robot voice fought back with the same amount of spite in it's tone. Both stopped abruptly and all was silent again. Sakura's body went tense and tight again.

Zetsu's cloak fluttered gently in the night breeze, but that sound was no comfort. If Sakura made one wrong _breath, _she could be in Akatsuki's clutches again. And the chances of escape that time would be much smaller.

Then, he walked on. Her necklace in hand. For a few seconds, Sakura could only watch and wonder what would happen next, but then the plant Akatsuki took off running. She took in a sharp gasp and stood up slowly. She looked over the hills, and saw Zetsu running up and down the hills, towards the Akatsuki's base…

Which was… A castle.

She couldn't believe it. Sakura didn't even bother to rub her eyes to check if her eyes were deceiving her. The stone fortress sat atop one of the largest hills, surrounded by the tall, swaying grass on all sides. From her spot, she could see several windows at regular intervals—why the HELL hadn't she seen those before when she was in there?!—while four jagged spires rose threateningly up at the top. She could just barely see things hanging off the spires like decorations. Deidara's giant clay creations, perhaps, or Sasori's puppets. The thought made her want to punch Sasori in the face for some reason.

Zetsu ran closer and closer to the castle, and he appeared to be running around the side, perhaps to find a front door. _'Kisame did say he led me to the back door…' _She remembered. Zetsu stopped where he was, ending her train of thought. He stopped, stood still, and then whipped around to stare at her.

Even this far away, a hundred yards at the very least, she could feel Zetsu's eyes boring into her. They glowed yellow like perfectly round fireflies, burning into her skin. She wanted to run. The woods were only a few meters away. She _should _have run. But his look kept her pinned there. And as Zetsu stared at her, so far away yet so goddamn frightening, a door opened. The same door Kisame had let her out of. Two men in dark cloaks stepped out. One she recognized by the hair color.

Sasori.

Before she could let his glassy, brown eyes lock onto hers—for that would pin her down for sure—Akatsuki's former prisoner dashed away into the woods with a pounding fear-filled heart. The beating of her heart was so very loud, if anyone was coming after her…she could not hear them.

666

5:41 AM (extremely early in the morning) January 13th

666

'_I have to be almost…there…by now…right?' _Sakura questioned herself yet again. She's lost all track of the clock she'd been keeping in her head by now. As far as she knew, it was just…dawn. Pink and orange was just barely beginning to peek into the sky. But the clouds had cleared now, and she could see that there were no stars to see, not even a moon, and everything was inky black.

Sakura had run off into a thick, dark wood to escape Akatsuki. Long ago, she'd come to the end of that wood, passed through a foggy swamp, slipped her way past an old town of drunks and nightclub-dwellers, over three rivers and around two lakes, and had entered another forest. This one was much thinner than the first, with fewer trees and plants to block her way and yes, fewer to hide in, if she needed to.

But chakra had not left her. Still, it pulsed on through, and though fatigue and exhaustion had caught up with her awhile ago, strength refused to give out. Fear was still too great to be doused by something as trivially pathetic as tiredness. Now, jumping from branch to forest floor to branch, she felt comfortable to get lost in her thoughts again, in a nice quiet though violet world where she could enjoy herself. First off: what she would do when getting home.

'_Hug Naruto.' _Was the first thing that came to mind. _'He'll be crazy with worry. Lee, too. And Tenten and Hinata and Tsunade-shishou…oh, she'll hug me to death before I can pass the freaking gate!' _Homesickness poked pitifully at her stomach, but wasn't nearly strong enough to dispel was other emotions were still there.

'**_So what? Come on, girl! You know where Akatsuki's base is!' _**Inner Sakura screeched, jumping about.**_ That's like the best accomplishment anyone could ever make!' _**The sudden remembrance of that fact nearly made her fall over. Of _course! _

She stopped on the ground with a grunt, and pulled several branches of a bush over her to keep somewhat hidden. Using a gloved, trembling, tired finger, Sakura poked a few scrapes into the earth, pointing back the way she'd come. To the naked eye, this would look like nothing but the markings of a squirrel or raccoon. If she could get other shinobi to this spot, they could take her same trail back to the castle…Akatsuki would be conquered.

'_I _did _go in a straight line the whole time, didn't I?' _She laughed to herself. It would be easy. She had only turned curves or corners in her path to go around large lakes or people's houses. It was a simple path to follow. She'd gone swiftly—well, more like godspeedly—and silently. The task would be easy, and this experience could help vanquish the bastards for good.

She let out a long sigh, and grunted in pain as a cramp found it's way into her side. Sakura leaned down against a tree trunk, safe behind the large bush, and panted. Now that she had stopped moving, exhaustion was making itself as known as possible. _'Count to fifty…then move on. Uggh…I'll do it in Italian. Uno, due, tre, quattro—oh, SHIT!' _

She'd left her Italian book at Akatsuki's base.

'_Is that good? Is that bad? Does it suck? Oww! Goddammit!' _Worrisome thoughts had triggered the cramp. It stretched one way and the other until her entire body ached and muscles everywhere went tight and pulled. "Auggh…!" Her vision dulled and her head slowly began to throb with pain.

'_**Get up! Get up! It's…it's just…you're homesick! Come on! Konoha can't be that far! It's been like, three hours since we left!' **_

Inner was right. This pain was nothing. She'd endured worse than a headache and a few cramps. Sure, she'd be walking now, but she was still making progress. Not even Itachi could have tracked her by now. She'd just gone too fast, too much for anyone to keep up. She was sure. So Sakura counted to fifty in Italiano, feeling rather pissed off that she'd probably never see her Italian for Beginners book again, and prepared to stand up. With an annoyed groan, she sat up straight, uncomfortable cracking her spine in the process, and groggily stood up. Through the treetops she could barely see the pink and orange beginning to creep across the sky. Dawn was coming.

She looked down at the scratches she'd made in the ground. They were there, unharmed. And to make sure they stayed unharmed, Sakura took hold of a large bush branch and tugged on it, sweeping it over the marks to protect it from the eyes of others and the rain. The Haruno took a good look around the area, preserved the place to memory so as to find it again, and walked on. It couldn't possibly be much farther now.

'_Unless we're not even in Japan anymore…' _A voice in her head grumbled irritably. The medic ignored it as best she could.

"Hello!"

She stopped in her tracks…listened.

"This is Konoha's ANBU squad 9! Anyone hiding in the premises is to show themselves now! Mercy will not be given!"

'_That voice!' _Sakura's dull eyes brightened to their true emerald shine. _'It…it's…' _The thought was too much. She raised her voice and cried out, much to the complaint of her hoarse throat, "Lee! I'm here! I'm over here! I made it back!" Nothing answered for a moment, but then Sakura heard the quickly rustles of plants being moved around, of someone coming towards her. "Sakura-san?! Sakura-san, is that you? Please answer!"

"I'm coming!" She yelled to him. "Wait for me, I'm coming to you!"

"SAKURA-CHAAAAAAAAAAN!"

At the same time, a blur of orange and a blur of green burst from within the wood and tackled Sakura against a tree. Lee and Naruto were hugging her at once, crying and fretting and shouting. "Sakura-chan, what happened?! Who took you? Are you sick?"

"I can't believe we found you, Sakura-san! You don't know how we were—!"

Tenten, Hinata, Kakashi and Sai, dressed in fighting garb and gear, dashed up behind them. Each had amazed faces, wide eyes and all were speechless, except for Sai, who only stared with a ghost of a happy smile. Lee let his grip loose enough to look Sakura in the face and cry out, "I'm so sorry! I should have saved you, Sakura-san! I was on the other side of town when you were taken and I could have helped!"

"We saw footprints from that stupid bastard who took you!" Naruto cried, hugging Sakura close. "He was Akatsuki, wasn't he? Well, just tell me who! I'll kill 'em, Sakura-chan, I swear! They'll die for getting _near _you!" He said nothing more, only mumbled nonsense words with his face buried into Sakura's hair. Sakura herself patted Naruto's shoulders and muttered to him, "It _was _Akatsuki, you're right. It was Sasori."

"What?!" Tenten burst. "But—but you and Chiyo-baa-san killed him! Sasori is dead!"

"I thought so, too!" Sakura growled irritably. "Then I saw him hanging out outside my bedroom window, and the next thing I knew, I was at one of the training grounds, tryin' to kill him again!" That convinced them, but Hinata stilled seemed to doubt it. "But how can he still be alive?" Hinata fretted, moving up behind Naruto to hug Sakura. "You said that even Chiyo-baa-san knew it. He's dead for sure!"

"Hold on, hold on." Kakashi rapped his book sharply on Naruto and Lee's heads, and softly shooed Hinata off, forcing them to release their grip on Sakura. "First off, we have to get Sakura home. If you all don't have eyes, you can't see the condition she's in. Just look."

Naruto moved reluctantly away from Sakura and took Lee sorrowfully with him. Everyone looked the girl up and down, and the girl herself did as well. She just then noticed that her legs were covered with cuts , and the palms of her gloves had been ripped open, leaving her palms bare, red and bloody. Her shoes were in worse tatters, one sandal was close to falling off her foot. She felt her face with one rough palm, but couldn't feel anything but one long scratch on her forehead, and it wasn't bleeding.

"You're not terribly 'injured'," He said slowly. "But I'm not letting you keep standing around out here. You need rest and probably bandages as well. Tsunade will see to that when we get home." She smiled at the thought of seeing her dear teacher again. "That's good…can we get going now? I kind of feel like I want to get home quickly."

"Understandable," Tenten walked over and patted her on the back gently. "You don't look like you can run, so we'll walk. Konoha's just abut five miles or so that way." Tenten pointed in the direction from which they'd come, east, where pink was moving up in the sky. Sakura's eyes narrowed and went wide. _'I came from just back there…' _She thought. _'I was right. Konoha was just a really long line away from me. I was right! I would have just had to keep going in a straight line and I would have gotten straight home!' _

"Come on, ugly, let's move." Sai nudged her gently in the back, and Sakura easily recognized his attempt to be affectionate towards her. Everyone began walking. "I'll call for a ride when we get real close," Naruto smiled with a big thumbs-up sign. "I'll get Gamabunta! He'll help me if I have a bunch of ladies to carry around."

"Since we'll probably be walking for about an hour until then…" Kakashi began. He closed his Icha Icha book, and the rest of the shinobi understood his note of seriousness. "Why don't you tell us all what happened, Sakura?" All eyes were on her. "Yes, yes! Were you destroying evil men with your youthful grace, Sakura-san?" Lee cheered.

"Uh, well…" She struggled to find the words. It wouldn't be quite that subtle to break out and say, "Akatsuki molested me the whole time." Instead, she opted for, "I don't…want to tell you yet."

Tenten and Hinata stared with blank faces, unsure what she could be hiding. Naruto scratched his chin, and Lee did so too, though more dramatically. Sai stared straight ahead, perhaps thinking, but Kakashi looked straight at her, and from the shocked look in his eyes, Sakura could guess that he had more than a faint idea of what had happened to her. "I dunno." Naruto shrugged. "Did he force you to help make his puppets work? Or did he test them on you?" The second suggestion was growled out in anger. "Just say the word, Sakura-chan, and point the way. I'll _melt _him if you want me to. Sasori's going down!"

"And I'll stick him with every pointed stick I have." Tenten boasted. "And Hinata'll sock him in places he didn't know he had anymore!" Lee and Naruto both began saying and repeating their terrible punishments to Sasori for hurting their dear Sakura-san/chan, so fast and so spiritedly that their words couldn't be made out.

She knew she was safe now. Akatsuki wouldn't dare openly attack the Copy Nin Kakashi, not with this entire team of shinobi at his side, Sakura included. She would fight hardest, should they be attacked anyway. No amount of fear would keep her from punching any Akatsuki member in the face. She turned around briefly to look up through tops of trees they'd passed, to see if dawn was breaking faster—and something caught her eye.

Sakura twisted all the way around and walked backwards. Her friends chuckled at her, but didn't seem to notice. She scanned the treetops, expecting to see a bird who had stolen some shinobi headband and was carrying it in it's beak. But she did not see that at all.

Instead, she saw Deidara.

She stopped walking and was nearly pulled off her feet by Tenten and Lee. "Sakura, c'mon. We're not taking a break. I'll carry you if you want." She made no sound or movement to acknowledge either of them. Deidara was sitting cross-legged on a high tree branch, his electric blue eye glowing cheerily as always and his grin plastered onto his face, as always…staring straight at her.

The shiny glint appeared to be the glare of the scope on his left eye. A click resounded through the wood. The scope's lens blinked, closing and opening. It had taken her picture.

"Sakura, come on! I said if you're that tired, I can carry you!"

His trademark bang covered that side of his face again, and then he was staring at her again, with the same lust-filled, playful grin that he always looked at her with. The same look that created fear and disgust in her stomach. She wasn't counting the lust that Sasori had said was there. The branch above Deidara swayed and swayed, until something dropped down beside him, and sat next to him.

'_Fuck no, fuck no, fuck no, fuck no, fuck no, fuck no…'_

Sasori's seductive smile was directed at her once again as he appeared next to his partner. Her eyes were forced to lock with his, and the clenching of the stomach began once more. Sakura put a hand over her belly, hoping it would stop this time, now that she had chakra to protect herself.

What was she _doing?_ She should be angry! Furious! Absolutely _raging, _that they dare come to Konoha's forest after her, after she painfully hard escape from their castle. She should be cursing them for living, for having eyes and mouths to make those goddamn faces with, for just existing. They should die. She should _make _them die.

The two of them there, at the same time, staring at her with the gaze that she feared so much, helped to dispel those thoughts.

Even more so, when Hidan appeared.

He waltzed out from behind the tree trunk and stood under their branch, scythe strapped to his back and arms crossed smugly. "W-What the fuck is he…?" She saw Lee getting in her face, waving a hand, and asking a question, but she didn't hear. She could only see the three Akatsuki, less than 30 feet away from her, sitting in a tree.

'_What is he doing here…?!' _She thought wildly, her eyes going wide. _'He said he was a part of my damn destiny! He helped me! Why is he with the ones who were trapping me?' _

She saw his arrogant smirk and his tongue peeking childishly out of his mouth. The look of a liar exposing himself. The medic girl's jaw tightened with realization. Hidan hadn't helped her. Tobi hadn't been running around at all last night—or was it a few hours ago?—as he and Kisame had claimed he always did. Hidan had merely gotten in her way to see her, to see the little girl that his fellow members had been so hung up about. Had Kisame not been there by her, he may have done the same _things _to her as Sasori, Deidara and Itachi had done.

Itachi?

At the very mention, er, thought, of his name, the Uchiha made himself known. At the tree just a few feet away from where Hidan, Sasori and Deidara were, Itachi suddenly _poofed _into existence on a high-hanging branch. He sat with his back against the tree trunk and one leg sprawled lazily over the branch. His eyes burned crimson-red with their Sharingan, and as expected, they stared deep into her own.

One by one, the rest of Akatsuki appeared near those two trees. Kakuzu, whom she had seen only a few times by passing by him in a hallway, dropped onto the branch below Itachi. Tobi, noticeable by his orange mask, jumped onto a branch near Sasori and Deidara. He was goofily waving to her, but this didn't help the growing dread. Zetsu, with his evil, glowing yellow eyes, stood in between the two trees, the only space large enough to give him room for his plant accessory.

There was only one more and…Kisame walked out from behind the trunk of Itachi's tree, his giant sword strapped over his shoulder. She could see the sorrowed look in his eyes. What had happened? Was he being forced to come along with his group? Would he be killed for betrayal to them?

She wasn't even aware of her friends anymore. Only Akatsuki was before her. She spent several dreadful moments watching them, waiting for one of them to pounce as she expected so much. None of them did. They only stared back with such lustful eyes she wanted to scream. The pressure, the tension, whatever this was in the air, was thick enough to cut with a blade.

What were they here for?

That was made clear a moment later. Deidara reached into his pocket, digging for something, all the while looking at her with his tongue poking out his mouth. He pulled out the item he was looking for. He spread his fingers. The mouth on his palm held it in it's teeth. It was her necklace.

'…_What? What does that mean?' _

The circular charm shone in the dawn's pale light. It shone glassily and twirled around the in palm-mouth's grip. Deidara lifted it higher, and all gazes shifted to it. No one's eyes were on Sakura. All stared up at the black charm. Pale sunlight shone onto the black charm, shining onto the engraved symbol. It was lit up, and even far off, Sakura could see what it was.

It was a large, fancy letter _A. _

A letter 'A'? She squinted and stared as Sasori took one end of the red chord in his hand and Deidara pulled the other, straightening the chord and pulling the necklace tight. The _A _symbol shone brightly. _'That's it?' _She thought. _'I could never see what symbol was carved on that thing? And it was just an A? I thought it would be…a black cross or a 666 thing but just—' _Her thoughts were cut off as the true meaning hit. With the necklace being held securely between Sasori and Deidara, it was hard to miss.

_A for Akatsuki. _

Her heart went pulsing quickly, and her vision dulled with fear and confusion. What was going on? She had been wearing Akatsuki's necklace…what did that mean? Sakura's mind searched all the files on each of Akatsuki's members, searching for something that could help her find the meaning of all this.

Mental bricks seemed to fall in a storm.

She recalled words from each Akatsuki member. Words that rang so ominously in her head it throbbed with pain.

"_You could walk into the enemy's arms and never see it, yeah." _

"_We're waist-deep in lust for you."_

"_You touched my heart, remember?" _

"_If I leave the little flower alone, she will run off." _

"_I'm getting you out. You'll be free from them." _

A puzzle fell darkly into place in her mind. Akatsuki had been waist-deep in lust for her…Sasori. When she'd been kidnapped, she'd been drugged, and fallen into the enemy's arms and never seen it…Deidara. As time had passed in their lair, Sakura had unknowingly grown closer to each member in different ways, and in one way, touched their hearts…Hidan. They knew she hated being imprisoned there as their pet, and they'd known that if they left her alone, without a male to guard her, she would run off into freedom…Itachi. But there was no way that she could get out on her own, so she had been secretly offered help…Kisame.

Now that she thought about it, that sequence of events seemed to flow too smoothly. Everything fell into place and went right as rain. As though…it had been arranged before.

Itachi seemed to read her thoughts, and licked his lips. _A game_.

Sakura tightened her hands to fists as she trembled. Of course it all went as though arranged. It _was _arranged. Akatsuki arranged for Sasori to kidnap her, to have it's members try and sexually play around with her, to have her subconsciously get to know each member, and place her trust in a certain one until she could even confide in him. That _one _had been Kisame.

She snapped her head to look from Sasori, to Itachi and finally Kisame. His face still seemed to be hurt, but the truth could easily be seen in him. He had _betrayed her. _He hadn't "sneaked her to a back door." No, he had _led her _into a more complex _trap. _She had taken the bait, Kisame's offer to get her out. But what was the danger of it? Would she be taken back to their base? Or something she couldn't even think of?

Looking into Kisame's face, she felt anger boil up. She judged his emotional face. He _had _betrayed her. The look enough was obvious. But the sadness…that couldn't possibly be fake. He had betrayed her, but perhaps he hadn't _wanted _to. He may have been forced by fellow Akatsuki, to get her to stealthily leave them, only to be found and caught again.

'_There has to be more!' _She panicked. _'They're not so petty as to just screw around with me like this. They wouldn't let me go free just to bring me back.' _

More mental bricks hit. _"I will let you stay outside for a longer time, little one…when I think you are ready." _Itachi's words rang loud as a Sunday church bell, and twice as clear.

She wasn't free.

How could she be so stupid? To think that she could sneak away while they were _sleeping? _Had she been thinking she was some child, sneaking outside past their bedtime while her parents were sleeping? This was _Akatsuki._ How in the hell could she think that she could sneak away while _Akatsuki was sleeping? _Did she think a plan that stupidly simple would work?!

She hadn't escaped Akatsuki. No, they were letting her have _recess. _She had escaped because they had _wanted _her to escape, to have time outside as she wished. They would be back, when her free time was up, and when they decided she should be back in their territory again.

"Sakura! Sakura, are you okay? Say something, you're pale as paper!" Hinata was shaking her. Sakura looked up at her purple-haired friend, and past her to Akatsuki, sitting casually in the trees. She pointed a trembling finger at them. All her friends turned to look. "What?" Tenten asked. "There's nothing there. What are you pointing at?"

Sakura let out a choking gasp. How could they not see? The country's most feared people were all within sight range, sitting in a couple of tree branches? What was wrong with them?

"We're taking you to a hospital!" Kakashi felt her forehead, and Sakura suddenly felt her head throbbing again. Hinata and Lee helped to set her gently down into a sitting position. Hinata sat with her while Naruto and Kakashi worked to summon Gamabunta as fast as they could. Sakura ignored Hinata's questions and stared at the necklace that the two artist nins still held between them.

What had been the point of the necklace, though? They were Akatsuki, weren't they? Did they really need a chakra-sucking necklace to keep a short little medic-girl contained? Sasori hadn't had that much trouble disposing of her when he had taken her, and she had had full power back then. Yet again, mental bricks hit.

She was being let outside as she requested from Itachi. She was being allowed time outside like a child at school, or a house pet into the backyard. A house pet… The necklace was not there to hold her chakra.

It was her _collar. _

Dog and cat collars had the names of their owners engraved onto them. The _A _engraved onto the necklace was the symbol, the name of her owner. She had never been able to take it off because of it's convenient, chakra-depleting effects. Or perhaps that had been their own stupid trick. A cat could never take off it's own collar, right?

The word "cat" brought up several occasions she remembered. When she had been so absorbed in reading her Italian book, she hadn't even noticed when Deidara lay in bed beside her. When she had been so dead tired that she hadn't put up any resistance when Sasori had put her to sleep by comfortingly stroking her neck and back, like his own life-size cat. Sasori must have been able to read her mind. He raised his free hand and blew a kiss to her. That gesture seemed to awaken her from her entire realization. She gave a violent start and jumped up, bumping Sai and trying to push through him to run towards Konoha. Sai and Tenten used teamwork to pull Sakura between them.

The brunette girl fanned her friend's face. "Are you having a seizure or something? Earth to Haruno! Say something before we deem you ill!"

She controlled her furious trembling and gathered the courage to stare Itachi in the face. It was his words that had most impacted her. His words had mattered the most when realizing what was really going on. "You _are _going down first!" She growled. Her friends all sent her the oddest looks they could muster. Naruto turned from his failing attempt at summoning and asked, "Who's going down first? Sasori?"

"Itachi."

The name drew a shocked gasp from half the group. But they weren't aware of what was truly going on. Akatsuki was invisible to their eyes. Itachi raised his head and met Sakura's gaze. "I'll be glad to be first," He chuckled darkly to her. "when it's time for you to come back."

"I'll fight!"

"I can't wait." The way his lips curled into a smile at that statement sent horrible, cold shivers down her spine.

"This is Hatake Kakashi, Jounin, currently assisting ANBU squad 9." Sakura could hear her old sensei speaking urgently into a radio of some sort. "Haruno Sakura has been found! Repeat, Haruno Sakura has been found! Please sent medic-nins! Haruno Sakura is in bad condition! Hallucinating, speaking to unknown peoples, in need of medical care!"

Deidara stood up on his branch and waved one hand. The mouth on it smiled and playfully stuck out it's tongue. He leapt away, followed by Tobi and Hidan. One by one, each Akatsuki disappeared. There was no trace that any of them had ever been there.

Her fingernails cut into her rough palms so deeply that they bled. "You fucking bastards…" She whispered. Lee tried to console her with sweet words, but she wasn't listening. "You just try! Come back whenever the hell you want! I'll be ready!"

"Sakura, _stop it." _Sai's blank voice was easily recognized by her ears, but she could barely focus on it. "Tsunade's coming to help you." Kakashi looked down at his student, amazed, confused and in awe. Whatever had happened to her during her two months' absence, it could not have been good. The look in her eyes that he'd caught had told him that.

All that they could do now was hold down their dear, struggling medic friend and hope for Tsunade to come soon and help her. She screeched and yelled into the trees. The others looked on with sympathy, pity, confusion and anger, all at once. "I know you're still there!" Sakura howled. "You'll be watching until you think I've had enough damn fun in my little home to come back to you! You'll be watching, bitches…I'll be _waiting." _

Her voice significantly dropped and her familiar, fiery will surfaced in the glow of her eyes. "I'll fight you forever. As long as it takes for every last one of your fucking gang to die. _You hear me?!_"

Akatsuki's own Sakura Haruno raised her voice once more. "You can't take me, you hear! _You can't take me!" _Her head dropped then, staring maliciously into a certain spot in the trees, where a pair of eyes were sharply watching her.

"I'm _free." _

666

THE END. 19 pages. 8800+ words. Fucking God. Wow. Well, this wraps everything up. Just to let you know, _Kisame **was **Sakura's friend. He was **forced **to betray her by the other Akatsuki. He did **not **want to. _I know it was a little strange that Sakura happened to figure out Akatsuki's real motive in the space of about ten seconds, but let's just go with the fact that she's smart. I know a lot of people wanted to see her kick some butt. She doesn't here. But she threatens pretty good. The last two sentences she says are from Bryan Adams' song, _You Can't Take Me. _Try listening to that song while reading this. As the author, of course, I did, and I think it gets a good atmosphere going.

Ta…Storm (How many of you actually got that I'm always saying "ta" as in "ta-ta, toodle-oo"? I'm not saying "teh Storm." I'm saying ta-ta.)

EDIT, AS OF...August 22nd, 2007. YES THERE WILL BE ANOTHER CHAPTER. I'm sorry for not making this clear. In fact, part of it is already typed. I actually planned to post chapter 4 on Sakura's birthday, but due to lack of a muse, that plan got screwed. But know this, fans. There WILL be a 4th chapter. Maybe even a 5th!


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